A True Alma Mater

Bilingual education professor establishes endowed scholarship to support graduate students in the College of Education and Human Sciences

By Michelle G. McRuiz

When the time came for Maria Brisk, PhD to consider how she might leave a legacy, she had no shortage of higher-education suitors. “All the universities ask for things,” Maria says. Educated at Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina, Georgetown University, and UNM, she had no shortage of alma maters to choose from, either.

Maria decided to make a gift to UNM’s College of Education, where she earned her doctorate in education and linguistics, “because UNM really impacted what I did for the rest of my career.” So, in the fall of 2023, she established the Professor Maria Estela Brisk Scholarship for Bilingual Education Teachers.

“I didn’t feel like just donating money,” Maria says. “I wanted to have an impact on something that matters to me. Master’s students never get support. UNM has a master’s degree in bilingual education. The idea of giving a scholarship to teachers who want to learn more about bilingual education seemed logical to me.”

A family tradition

Maria’s passion for education and bilingualism started at home. Her mother – who lived during a time when women typically didn’t pursue higher education – believed that you weren’t truly educated until you could speak at least two languages. When Maria’s daughter Angélica was born, Maria passed on that belief and practice. She spoke to Angélica only in Spanish, and her husband Bill spoke to Angélica only in English. The family routinely traveled to Argentina to visit their large extended family, and they also lived in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, and Peru, where Maria worked as a translator, instructor, and professor.

But when the family returned to the U.S Maria and Angélica encountered prejudice toward Spanish speakers. That angered Maria, and she tempered her emotion with action. She decided to dedicate her career to bilingualism and educating American students whose heritage languages were something other than English.

Maria has taught for 50 years, receiving several honors and awards along the way. She has been a professor at Boston College since 1999. Now in her 80s, she still teaches online classes there. Maria has advocated for parents and children in their legal battles to secure a good education and has supported students working to obtain bilingual education degrees. Meanwhile, she and Bill raised Angélica in a multilingual, multicultural home.

“My mother not only taught and trained teachers how to build best practice bilingual education programs at the university; she lived it in Argentina, and she practiced it as a mother and grandmother,” says Angélica, a high school television journalism teacher in Massachusetts.

The family tradition has continued: Angélica’s daughters Alejandra and Isabela enjoyed a dual-language education in the public schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Alejandra is now a bilingual special educator in the Bronx, New York. That’s four generations of bilingual women and girls in one family.

“Being bicultural and being in a bilingual education program was a formative and positive experience for my daughter,” says Angélica. “That’s why she decided to become a teacher.”

Celebrating through giving

Angélica is working to double the amount of her mother’s endowed scholarship through crowdfunding. “We’re starting it as a family,” she says. “My kids and I are the first ones giving to match my mom’s funding.” Then she wants to reach Maria’s former students – 50 years’ worth of alumni who call themselves “the Brisk babies” – and get them to participate, too.

“People always want to celebrate her,” Angélica says of Maria. “I want to engage those alumni to give in small amounts and match her legacy in a symbolic way.

“One of the reasons I am passionate about broadening the support for scholarship and promoting my mother's work is that being bilingual and bicultural has played an important role in my life and career as a filmmaker, and it was a guiding principle in raising my own children,” she continues. “Promoting highly trained educators in the field of bilingual education will benefit generations of U.S. families.”

Four generations of women pursuing bilingual education. Two generations of women giving back to an institution that deeply impacted them. The definition of “alma mater” is the school that one once attended. But in Latin, it means “generous mother” – a translation that both Maria and Angélica Brisk exemplify.